Artist of the week

Monday, February 11, 2013

The Lovely Eggs

- Hi Lovely Eggs! Let's start with the name of the band, why did you choose this?

Well I (Holly) was living in Paris and David came to stay with me for the summer and there was an abandoned nest on the bathroom windowsill. It had been there for months. And one day we found a pigeon sat in it and when the pigeon flew off it had laid two eggs in the nest. At the time me and David were just starting to write songs together so when we had to think of a name for the music stuff we were doing we chose The Lovely Eggs cos we were hatching as a band, a bit like those pigeon eggs. We saw the baby pigeons hatch and then we flew back to England and went to New York to play our first ever gig. And that was it.

-Why do you make music and what does it mean for you?

We have both always made music and been in bands. We just can't imagine doing anything else. For us it has come to represent freedom. It is also very exciting sometimes.

Well it's all about sex and loneliness really. The food thing is really just a ruse! I was fascinated by the idea of people who live quite solitary lives and what they do when they need to fuck. There are a lot of single people who just get together to have sex and they don't want anything more than that. I thought the idea of two people getting together to eat a meal together say once a week, just to eat together was an interesting idea. I am quite obsessed with the idea of food actually. You will find it in a lot of our songs. It represents a lot of things.

-Is There a link between your first albums (“If You Were Fruit”, “Cob Dominos”) and your last “Wildlife”?

Well yes! We wrote and recorded all the songs on them. They were recorded at Lancaster Musicians Co-op in Lancaster where we live. That is the link.

Some of our songs are definitely pretty surreal and we do like a lot of pretty absurd/surreal authors and artists so yeah we guess you could say we're coming from that vibe. A lot of our songs are about very normal things though. So we go from the surreal to the mundane. That's where it blurs. We think normal everyday life can be pretty surreal sometimes. Dunno about the working class thing. We both come from pretty working class backgrounds but it's not something we consciously try to get across in our songs or anything.

-If it was up to you, how would you define your sound?

We would never define our sound because it changes all the time. We have no rules in our band regarding sound (which is why some songs are 5 seconds long and some are 5 minutes long). But the bare bones are a drum kit, a guitar and a Big Muff.

-Talking about the compositions of your songs: how and where they born? Do you have a favourite one?

We write songs all over the place. Sometimes at home, when we are out and about or in a rehearsal room. Don't really think we have favourites.

-What genres and artists influenced your music the most?

The author Richard Brautigan has had quite a big influence on us. He seems to view the world through different glasses and it is nice to wear those spectacles. We also like David Shrigley. We love his art and he just seems to have the same squint on life that we do.

-You come from Lancaster, England. What do you think about the music coming from your country and how how do you see yourself in relation to them?

I think the UK as a whole has so many bands that you can't just generalise and say bands from over here are great or shit or whatever. There are some bands we absolutely love and making really exciting music and others we think are just churning out bland generic music industry bullshit. We see ourselves very much apart from other bands though. We have lots of friends in bands we absolutely love but musically we are not similar. We have never really fitted into any scene like that.

-You are a married couple: does it affects the band? And if so, how?

Not really. It just means we get to fuck off on tour together and have fun. It's the best thing in the world to be honest.

-What's your favourite artist and song?

Oh that is an impossible question! We don't have a favourite. Old time classic favourites include The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Grandaddy and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. But we also love new stuff like Hotpants Romance, Cate le Bon, Let's Wrestle. There is no way ever we could pin down our favourite song.

-Who do you think are the most relevant musicians nowadays and who are you listening to the most?

Not sure what you mean by relevant but as for bands doing stuff actually now, as we said we are into Hotpants Romance, Cate le Bon, Let's Wrestle, Kurt Vile, Sweet Baboo.

-How much does the live element matter in your music? In many reviews it is said that your concerts are full of epic atmosphere, what do you think about it?

Playing live is really important to us. Our gigs are all about a punk rock party. We don't like people to think they are watching the band but being part of a party. We want to break down those barriers and drink as much Strongbow as we can!

-If you could pick an artist or a band to play with on a stage, who would you choose?

Oh god we dunno. Sonic Youth with all those millions of guitars would be pretty amazing. Either that or something really stripped back like Jonathan Richman.

-What do you think about the music industry nowadays? Wanna talk us about your experience with the labels? The radio has a lot of influence in your path, didn'it?

We're very independent of the music industry we think. We don't really operate in that sphere. Saying that we've released stuff on Cherryade Records and Too Pure. Cherryade are very DIY and have the same spirit as us and Too Pure again were just ace to do stuff with. We've definitely sung from the same hymn sheet with the labels we have worked with so far. Radio-wise yeah we're been played quite a lot of radio over here. We have just been very lucky and sent them the records and they played em!

-What is the message that you'd like to express to the people who listen to your music and what would you like to say to your fans?

You don't need to chase a record deal. There are plenty of amazing small labels releasing stuff and you can also release stuff yourself. Don't rely on other people to tell you yer good, believe in yerself and fucking go for it! Don't let your own band's future rely on the music industry. Fuck it and get on with it yourself.

-What is your favourite book and movie?

Can't pick favourites but we really like In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan and film-wise we are massive fans of The Wickerman (the original)

-Wanna talk us about “Haunt me Out” aka the “Twin Peaks single”?

There's not much to say, other than we released a single called Haunt Me OUt for Halloween. The song was inspired by Twin Peaks. Each limited edition CD came with a Laura Palmer half heart necklace and there were 6 different CD designs, each a different favoured Agent Cooper donut. They sold out very quickly and some set on fire in the post. We have been sent a photograph to prove this. Very weird.